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Format HFS+ Partition In Windows XP

VenumX

By VenumX,
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VenumX
VenumX
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Hello,

I was just wondering if there is any type of software or procedure to format a partition to HFS+ from windows. I know that when you install osx86 there is a Disk Utility in there but it gives me errors and wont let me format the disk as HFS+. I think that if I could format it to HFS+ from windows it would solve my problem because then I could just mount the HFS+ partition without having to use the disk utility in the installation. Any responses would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

VenumX

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Mebster
Mebster
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I used GParted from within a Ubuntu live CD. You can download it and just use that without installing anything. I tried to download GParted by it self but what I got just looked like something completely different and I wasn't able to use it. Maybe I downloaded something else.

 

Anyway GParted allows you to format to HFS but not HFS+ (not the version I used anyway). So if it's just a backup partition then maybe HFS will be enough. But i'm not too sure about the pros and cons. All I know is one has jorunaling and the other doesn't. And I just don't think you need journaling for a backup partition.

 

Alternatively you can try and format it to HFS or even FAT32 and then go into Disk Utilities and try and format the same partition into HFS+ now. Hopefully the error won't appear then.

 

Remember you need to make sure you have space to convert into HFS. Something like Partition Magic should do the trick.

 

Hope this helos out.

-AcePlayer

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VenumX
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I used GParted from within a Ubuntu live CD. You can download it and just use that without installing anything. I tried to download GParted by it self but what I got just looked like something completely different and I wasn't able to use it. Maybe I downloaded something else.

 

Anyway GParted allows you to format to HFS but not HFS+ (not the version I used anyway). So if it's just a backup partition then maybe HFS will be enough. But i'm not too sure about the pros and cons. All I know is one has jorunaling and the other doesn't. And I just don't think you need journaling for a backup partition.

 

Alternatively you can try and format it to HFS or even FAT32 and then go into Disk Utilities and try and format the same partition into HFS+ now. Hopefully the error won't appear then.

 

Remember you need to make sure you have space to convert into HFS. Something like Partition Magic should do the trick.

 

Hope this helos out.

-AcePlayer

 

From my knowledge the regular HFS filesystem has a maximum size of 2.00 gb whilst the HFS+ filesystem has a max filesize of like 16 TB? I have 40 GB that I need to format in HFS+ format.

 

Hi,

 

I think that MacDrive 7 from Mediasoft can do the job. i think the disk manager part of this program can help you.

 

Hope this helps,

 

Theofan1960

 

I will try this method and get back to you, thank you for your time.

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Mebster
Mebster
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From my knowledge the regular HFS filesystem has a maximum size of 2.00 gb whilst the HFS+ filesystem has a max filesize of like 16 TB? I have 40 GB that I need to format in HFS+ format.
Just checked. HFS has a max file size of 2GB and a max volume size of 2TB. HFS+ has a max file size of 16EB and a max volume size of 16EB.

 

I'm surprised by the 2GB file size limit on HFS. FAT32 is better it seems.

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VenumX
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Ok, so first I went and and tried macdrive 7 to see if it would format it into HFS+ for me. It didn't. It will not touch any windows drives such as fat32 or ntfs so that rules that out. Next i tried to use the gparted live cd to format it into regular HFS after reading ace's post. Told me that the max volume size was 2gb for HFS and it wouldn't format it. I have previously formatted it to fat32 in windows. So I'm wondering why gparted is saying the max VOLUME size is 2gb. If anyone has any other ideas or can see where I made a mistake please tell me.

Thanks in advance,

VenumX

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Mebster
Mebster
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Ok, so first I went and and tried macdrive 7 to see if it would format it into HFS+ for me. It didn't. It will not touch any windows drives such as fat32 or ntfs so that rules that out. Next i tried to use the gparted live cd to format it into regular HFS after reading ace's post. Told me that the max volume size was 2gb for HFS and it wouldn't format it. I have previously formatted it to fat32 in windows. So I'm wondering why gparted is saying the max VOLUME size is 2gb. If anyone has any other ideas or can see where I made a mistake please tell me.

Thanks in advance,

VenumX

When I say use GParted I mean within Ubuntu Live CD. I had 6.06 and under the shortcut in the navigation part it wasn't called GParted but something else but the program that did open was called GParted.

 

Anyway I formatted 2 partitions into FAT32. One was 135GB and the other 15GB. Both formatted fine. Then I used Disk Utilities in OS X to convert the 135GB as HFS+ and U left the 15GB partition as FAT32.

 

So you see it worked for me without any issues. Hope that explains a little more.

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VenumX
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Nothing was working, so I went to Acronis Disk Director and I formatted the drive as a fat32 (like I had done before) then I changed the type to ShagOS (swap) which changed the type to 0xAF. I rebooted then ran the MacOSX Disk Director and finally it converted the drive into HFS+ format. I suspect it had something to do with the partition map of the filesystem types I was formatting it to before. Thank you for all your help. It installed really well, but when i boot up I have a new problem I'm going to post about it in another section.

Thanks again for all your help,

VenumX

 

If you would like to help me with my new issue heres a link to the problem:

 

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=48835

 

Thanks again guys,

VenumX

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theunnamed
theunnamed
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Hi friends, I have a nearly same problem while installing Mac OS 10.4.4 to my dell inspiron 6400 laptop.. I couldn't format the drive as HFS+. Everytime it says "Volume Erase Failed, Could Not Read Partition Map". The disk seems not mounted and when I try to mount the volume it says "Unable to mount ..." like that. is this the same problem with VenumX's ? How can I do that on windows to install MAC.. thanks..

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nevvvw
nevvvw
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have you seen the muvi called Pirates of the caribbean the Johny guy starred one?

go to their bay in another country in Europe and do a search for kalyway's bootable cd!

by using that you can fix your formatting problem!

 

also reading this fully will help you with some

 

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=72493

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=72493#

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francis611
francis611
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Ya lol I saw this movie but the best part was when the stupid pirate felt in the water right in the middle of the bay.organs are cool ; i liked when when davy jones was playing it :) When they were in the bay, they made a search for osx86 leopard flat image and found what they wanted ! ;)

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t6590
t6590
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Try transmac, works out of XP and can do HFS, HFS+and HFS+ Journaled. But you wont read the partition in XP once TransMac is done with it. I have never had a successful install of OS X on FAT32 or NTFS. Hfs made by Disk Utility just does not work for me. Functions of Ubuntu 6 live CD are limited. Also I think Vista recognises GPT partitions, and may be format them.

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EddM
EddM
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If GParted isn't working for you out of the Ubuntu LiveCD, then give the GParted LiveCD a go. It did the job for me when taking an HFS+ chunk out of my HD -- or at least for prepping a partition that will be accepted by Disk Utility.

 

And if not, it's a great CD to just have lying around for when you really do need it. ;)

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Dermatea
Dermatea
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Try transmac, works out of XP and can do HFS, HFS+and HFS+ Journaled.

 

TransMac does look quite promising. It seems to be able to easily format a drive to HFS+:

 

formatdiskformacvf5.jpg

 

http://www.asy.com/scrtm.htm

 

 

Also, has anyone tried a software called NTFS for Mac OS X? It's sort of like MacDrive but for Macs. It allows both read and write access to NTFS partitions from within OS X:

 

http://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac/

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matthjoe
matthjoe
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After looking into Transmac and MacDrive, GParted and even more options, I did manage to solve the problem of formatting a partition into HFS+ so that it would be properly recognised by disk utility. I used diskpart, a command line program in windows.

 

All you have to do is create a partition using id=af. Eg. after starting diskpart (start, run, cmd, diskpart) 

create partition primary id=af

 

However, it would be in your interest to create the appropriate space for it beforehand. You do this by 

list disk

to see your disks, then 

select disk x

to select the disk no. x, then 

list partition

to see your partitions. At this point, if you already have the free space you require you can go straight to 

create partition primary id=af

 

However, if you want to delete a partition to make the space you need, you should type 

select partition x

to select the partition with no. x that you want to delete, then you can do 

detail partition

to make sure it's the right one, finally type 

delete partition

to completely remove it. Obviously everything on the partition will be deleted with it. Then you can type 

create partition primary id=af

 

Make sure you back up any important data first, and all that...

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